May 27, 2007

Beer Podcast: Recap of Beer Dinner at Deks

On today's show you'll get a quick update about what's happening in Long Island's beer scene. Check the calendar often if you don't want to miss a beer event.

Featured Beer: Our featured beer is the Southampton May Bock. We taste that and give you our impressions.

Beer/Food Pairing: Then, Rich and I talk about the beer dinner at Deks in Rocky Point. The story behind this beer dinner is this: Together with podcast regular, Mike, I encouraged the owners of Deks to stage a beer dinner. Beer dinners are something that I know a lot about. My wife Denise (another regular on the podcast, remember the food and beer pairing segments we've been doing?) and I have been hosting beer dinners at our home for many years. They are so popular that we realized we needed to move these events to a bigger place than our living room and actually get some help with the food preparation. So I explained to Dean and Kevin at Deks just what I had in mind and they said, "Let's do it."

You'll hear all about the dinner on the show, but I'll give you a short preview. We had five beers and five courses. Dean and Kevin came up with the menu, then Mike and I suggested the beer pairings. With the scallops wrapped with bacon we paired Allagash White. Next we paired the cheese quesadillas with Chimay Cing Cent. For the salmon wrapped in phyllo dough we had Flying Dog's Old Scratch. We paired Einbecker Mai-Urbock with pickled shrimp with a Thai sauce glaze. We finished the evening with chocolate mousse on espresso infused lady fingers paired with Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout (easily the best combination of the evening).

If you haven't been to Deks in a while, you might want to stop in and check out their new twelve tap system and expanded craft beer selection in the bottle. Mike and I have been giving suggestions to Dean about what to make available to Long Island beer lovers. Stop in some time and ask "What's new?"